Saturday, January 18, 2014

Maps are Popular with NYT Readers

Maps seem to be becoming more and more popular on the web. This is confirmed today by the release of the Most Visited Content of 2013 by the New York Times. The New York Times's list of their most popular online articles of last year includes two map features.

In fact the most popular feature on the NYT last year was How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk. This interactive feature asks you a series of questions about your pronunciation and use of certain words and from the answers creates a personal dialect map. The resulting heatmap shows you which areas of the US have the most similar dialect to you.

Also in the New York Times list of its top ten online stories was the Site of the Explosions at the Boston Marathon - Map. As part of its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings the NYT created this static 'bird's eye' aerial view of
Boylston St in Boston. The map shows the location of the two bomb explosions
and the marathon finishing line.